Chapter Two: Approaches to Ethics

Normative Ethics
•Normative ethical theories are concerned with ethical action: in other words, with what
people ‘ought’ to do in general. This section provides a brief overview of the main types
of normative ethical theories and it introduces key, recurring terms and concepts.
•Normative ethics;
 Offers theories or accounts of the best way to live. These theories evaluate actions in a
systematic way, i.e., they may focus on outcomes or duties or motivation as a means of
justifying human conduct.
 Includes ethical theories or approaches such as utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics.
•Normative ethics poses questions of the following kind:
 Are there general principles or rules that we could follow
which distinguish between right and wrong? Or:
 Are there virtues and/or relationships that we can nurture, in
order to behave well?
 Teleological Ethics (Consequentialist)

•It is referred as “the end justifies the means”. It believes in purpose, ends

or goals of an action, it stresses that the consequences of an action

determine the morality or immorality of a given action. Which means an

action is judged as right or wrong, moral or immoral depending on what

happens because of it.

• A teleological theory says that the basic or ultimate criterion or standard of

what is morally right, wrong, obligatory, etc., is the non-moral value that

is brought into being. The final appeal, directly or indirectly, must be to

the comparative amount of good produced, or rather to the comparative

balance of good over evil produced.

• Thus, an act is right if and only if it or the rule under which it falls

produces, will probably produce, or is intended to produce at least as great

a balance of good over evil as any available alternative; an act is wrong if

and only if it does not do so. An act ought to be done if and only if it or the

rule under which it falls produces, will probably produce, or is intended to

produce a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative.
• Deontological theories deny what teleological theories affirm. They assert

that there are other considerations that may make an action or rule right

or obligatory besides the goodness or badness of its consequences --

certain features of the act itself other than the value it brings into

existence,
• for example, the fact that it keeps a promise, is just, or is commanded by

God or by the state. Teleologists believe that there is one and only one

basic or ultimate right-making characteristic, namely, the comparative

value (nonmoral) of what is, probably will be, or is intended to be brought

into being.
• Deontologists either deny that this characteristic is right-making at all or

they insist that there are other basic or ultimate right-making

characteristics as well. For them the principle of maximizing the balance of

good over evil, no matter for whom, is either not a moral criterion or

standard at all, or, at least, it is not the only basic or ultimate one.
• This view was held by Epicurus, Hobbes, and Nietzsche, among others. Ethical

universalism, or what is usually called utilitarianism, takes the position that the

ultimate end is the greatest general good -- that an act or rule of action is right if and only

if it is, or probably is, conducive to at least as great a balance of good over evil in the

universe as a whole as any alternative would be, wrong if it is not, and obligatory if it is or

probably is conducive to the greatest possible balance of good over evil in the universe.
 Utilitarianism: Producing the best consequences

• That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the

greatest numbers. Consider some traditional moral principles and see if

they help us come to a decision. We have already examined one type of

teleological ethics: ethical egoism, the view that the act that produces the

most amount of good for the agent is the right act.

• Egoism is teleological ethics narrowed to the agent himself or herself.

Unlike ethical egoism, utilitarianism is a universal teleological system. It

calls for the maximization of goodness in society—that is, the greatest

goodness for the greatest number—and not merely the good of the agent.
 Classic Utilitarianism

• In our normal lives we use utilitarian reasoning all the time. As a formal

ethical theory, the seeds of utilitarianism were sewn by the ancient Greek

philosopher Epicurus (342–270 BCE), who stated that “pleasure is the goal

that nature has ordained for us; it is also the standard by which we judge

everything good.”
• According to this view, rightness and wrongness are determined by
pleasure or pain that something produces. Epicurus’s theory focused
largely on the individual’s personal experience of pleasure and pain, and
to that extent he advocated a version of ethical egoism. Nevertheless,
Epicurus inspired a series of eighteenth-century philosophers who
emphasized the notion of general happiness—that is, the pleasing
consequences of actions that impact others and not just the individual.
• The classical expressions of utilitarianism, though, appear in the writings

of two English philosophers and social reformers Jeremy Bentham (1748–

1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). They were the nonreligious

ancestors of the twentieth-century secular humanists, optimistic about

human nature and our ability to solve our problems without recourse to

God.
• Engaged in a struggle for legal as well as moral reform, they were

impatient with the rule-bound character of law and morality in eighteenth-

and nineteenth-century Great Britain and tried to make the law serve

human needs and interests.

Jeremy Bentham: Quantity over Quality

•There are two main features of utilitarianism, both of which Bentham

articulated:

• The consequentialist principle (or its teleological aspect): states that the
rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by the goodness or badness
of the results
 that flow from it. It is the end, not the means that counts; the end justifies
the means. and
 The utility principle (or its hedonic aspect): states that the only thing that
is good in itself is some specific type of state (for example, pleasure,
happiness, welfare).
• There is something appealing about Bentham’s utilitarianism. It is simple

in that there is only one principle to apply: Maximize pleasure and

minimize suffering. It is commonsensical in that we think that morality

really is about reducing suffering and promoting benevolence.

• It is scientific: Simply make quantitative measurements and apply the

principle impartially, giving no special treatment to ourselves or to anyone

else because of race, gender, personal relationship, or religion.

 John Stuart Mill: Quality over Quantity

• It was to meet these sorts of objections and save utilitarianism from the

charge of being a pig philosophy that Bentham’s successor, John Stuart

Mill, sought to distinguish happiness from mere sensual pleasure. His

version of the theory is often called eudaimonistic utilitarianism (from the

Greek eudaimonia, meaning “happiness”).

• He defines happiness in terms of certain types of higher-order pleasures or

satisfactions such as intellectual, aesthetic, and social enjoyments, as well

as in terms of minimal suffering. That is, there are two types of pleasures.

The lower, or elementary, include eating, drinking, sexuality, resting,

and sensuous titillation.

• The higher include high culture, scientific knowledge, intellectuality,

and creativity. Although the lower pleasures are more intensely

gratifying, they also lead to pain when overindulged in. The higher

pleasures tend to be more long term, continuous, and gradual.

• Mill argued that the higher, or more refined, pleasures are superior to the

lower ones: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig

satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” Humans

are the kind of creatures who require more to be truly happy. They want

the lower pleasures, but they also want deep friendship, intellectual ability,

culture, the ability to create and appreciate art, knowledge, and wisdom.
• Mill is clearly pushing the boundaries of the concept of “pleasure” by

emphasizing higher qualities such as knowledge, intelligence, freedom,

friendship, love, and health. In fact, one might even say that his litmus test

for happiness really has little to do with actual pleasure and more to do

with a non-hedonic cultivated state of mind.

 Act- And Rule-Utilitarianism

• There are two classical types of utilitarianism: act- and rule-utilitarianism.

In applying the principle of utility, act-utilitarian’s, such as Bentham, say

that ideally, we ought to apply the principle to all of the alternatives open

to us at any given moment. We may define act-utilitarianism in this way:

• Act-utilitarianism argues that an act is right if and only if it results in as
much good as any available alternative. One practical problem with act-
utilitarianism is that we cannot do the necessary calculations to determine
which act is the correct one in each case, for often we must act
spontaneously and quickly. So, rules of thumb are of practical importance
—for example, “In general, don’t lie,” and “Generally, keep your
promises.”
• However, the right act is still that alternative that results in the most
utility. A second

• problem with act-utilitarianism is that it seems to fly in the face of

fundamental intuitions about minimally correct behavior. The alternative

to act-utilitarianism is a view called rule-utilitarianism—elements of which

we find in Mill’s theory. Most generally, the position is this:

• Rule-utilitarianism: An act is right if and only if it is required by a rule
that is itself a member of a set of rules whose acceptance would lead to
greater utility for society than any available alternative. Human beings
are rule-following creatures.

• We learn by adhering to the rules of a given subject, whether it is speaking

a language, driving a car, dancing, writing an essay, rock climbing, or
cooking.
• We want to have a set of action guiding rules by which to live. The act-

utilitarian rule, to do the act that maximizes utility, is too general for most

purposes. Often, we don’t have time to decide whether lying will produce

more utility than truth telling, so we need a more s pecific rule prescribing

truthfulness that passes the test of rational scrutiny.

 The Strengths of Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism has three very positive features.

• The first attraction or strength is that it is a single principle, an absolute system

with a potential answer for every situation: Do what will promote the most

utility! It’s good to have a simple, action-guiding principle that is applicable to

every occasion—even if it may be difficult to apply (life’s not simple).

• Its second strength is that utilitarianism seems to get to the substance of
morality. It is not merely a formal system that simply sets forth broad
guidelines for choosing principles but offers no principles—such as the
guideline “Do whatever you can universalize.” Rather it has a material
core: We should promote human (and possibly animal) flourishing and
reduce suffering. The first virtue gives us a clear decision procedure in
arriving at our answer about what to do.
• The second virtue appeals to our sense that morality is made for people

and that morality is not so much about rules as about helping people and

alleviating the suffering in the world. As such, utilitarianism seems

commonsensical.
• A third strength of utilitarianism is that it is particularly well suited to

address the problem of posterity—namely, why we should preserve scarce

natural resources for the betterment of future generations of humans that

do not yet exist. Expressed rhetorically, the question is “Why should I care

about posterity; what has posterity ever done for me?”

 Deontological Ethics (Non- Consequentialist)

•Deontology: What duty asks of us?

•What makes a ‘right’ act right? The utilitarian or consequentialist answer to
this question is that it is the good outcome of an act which makes it right.
Moral rightness or wrongness is calculated by determining the extent to
which the action promotes values such as pleasure, well-being, happiness,
etc. To this extent, the end justifies the means. In many respects,
deontological moral theory is diametrically the opposite of utilitarianism.
Cont--

• It is referred as “the means justifies the end”. It is coined as

“deontics”(moral obligation). This is a theory that the rightness or

wrongness of moral action is determined, at least partly with reference to

formal rules of conduct rather than consequences or result of an action.

• It is an emphasis on the intentions, motives, moral principles or

performance of duty rather than results, as the sign of right

action/morality and immorality. It is a duty based and according to this

theory, the consequences or results of our action have nothing to do with

their rightness or wrongness.

 Performance of One’s own Duty

•The 17th century German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, who classified

dozens of duties under three headings: duties to God, duties to oneself and
duties to others!
•Concerning our duties towards God, he argued that there are two kinds:
(1) a theoretical duty to know the existence and nature of God, and (2) a
practical duty to both inwardly and outwardly worship God.
• Concerning our duties towards oneself; these are also of two sorts: (1)

duties of the soul, which involve developing one's skills and talents, and

(2) duties of the body, which involve not harming our bodies, as we might

through gluttony(eating excessively) or drunkenness, and not killing

oneself.
•Concerning our duties towards others; Pufendorf divides these

between absolute duties, which are universally binding on people, and

conditional duties, which are the result of contracts between people.

•Absolute duties are of three sorts: (1) avoid wronging others; (2) treat

people as equals, and (3) promote the good of others.

• Conditional duties involve various types of agreements, the

principal one of which is the duty is to keep one's promises.

 The Divine Command Theory

• According to one view, called the divine command theory (DCT), ethical

principles are simply the commands of God. They derive their validity

from God’s commanding them, and they mean “commanded by God.”

Without God, there would be no universally valid morality. We can

analyze the DCT into three separate theses:

1. Morality (that is, rightness and wrongness) originates with God.

2. Moral rightness simply means “willed by God,” and moral wrongness

means “being against the will of God.”

3. Because morality essentially is based on divine will, not on independently

existing reasons for action, no further reasons for action are necessary.
 Rights Theory

• A second duty-based approach to ethics is rights theory. Most generally, a

"right" is a justified claim against another person's behavior - such as my

right to not be harmed by you. Rights and duties are related in such a way

that the rights of one person imply the duties of another person.
• For example, if I have a right to payment of $10 by Smith, then Smith has a

duty to pay me $10. This is called the correlativity of rights and duties.

• The most influential early account of rights theory is that of 17th century

British philosopher John Locke, who argued that the laws of nature

mandate that we should not harm anyone's life, health, liberty or

possessions.
Cont --

• For Locke, these are our natural rights, given to us by God. Following Locke,

the United States Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson

recognizes three foundational rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness. Jefferson and others rights theorists maintained that we deduce

other more specific rights from these, including the rights of property,

movement, speech, and religious expression.

•There are four features traditionally associated with moral rights.
 First, rights are natural insofar as they are not invented or created by
governments.
 Second, they are universal insofar as they do not change from country to country.
 Third, they are equal in the sense that rights are the same for all people,
irrespective of gender, race, or handicap.
 Fourth, they are inalienable which means that I cannot hand over my rights to
another person, such as by selling myself into slavery.
 Kant’s Categorical Imperative

• The name of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is

identified with the moral theory known as deontology. Kant was

adamantly opposed to the idea that the outcome of an action could

determine its moral worth. For deontologists, it is not consequences which

determine the rightness or wrongness of an act, but, rather, the intention of

the person who carries out the act.

• The emphasis is on the correctness of the action, regardless of the possible

benefits or harm it might produce. Deontologists maintain that there are

some moral obligations which are absolutely binding, no matter what

consequences are produced.

 The Categorical Imperative

•A Kant’s duty-based theory is emphasizing a single principle of duty. Kant

agreed that we have moral duties to oneself and others, such as developing

one’s talents, and keeping our promises to others. However, Kant argued that

there is a more foundational principle of duty that encompasses our particular

duties. It is a single, self-evident principle of reason that he calls the

“categorical imperative.”
• A categorical imperative, he argued, is fundamentally different from

hypothetical imperatives that hinge on some personal desire that we have.

For example, “If you want to get a good job, then you ought to go to

college.” By contrast, a categorical imperative simply mandates an action,

irrespective of one’s personal desires, such as “You ought to do X.”

• To understand Kant’s thought, note the emphasis he places on the idea of

good intension. Kant believed that nothing was good in itself except a “good

will.”
• Hypothetical imperatives tell us which means best achieve our ends. They

do not, however, tell us which ends we should choose. The typical

dichotomy in choosing ends is between ends that are "right" (e.g., helping

someone) and those that are "good" (e.g., enriching oneself).

• Kant considered the "right" superior to the "good"; to him, the

"good" was morally irrelevant. In Kant's view, a person cannot

decide whether conduct is "right," or moral, through empirical

means. Such judgments must be reached a priori, using pure

practical reason.
• Kant's theory is hinged by his beliefs on autonomy and his formulation of categorical

imperatives.

• He believed that, unless a person freely and willingly makes a choice, their action

has no meaning (and certainly no moral value).

• Autonomy allows us to be self-creating when it comes to our values and morality.

• Autonomy is one’s own beliefs, independence, and

government: acting without regard for anyone else. Conversely,

heteronomy is acting under the influence of someone else and

allows for an individual to consistently place blame outside of

self.
 Ross’s Prima Facie Duties or Moral Guidelines

• A fourth and more recent duty-based theory is that by British philosopher

W.D. Ross, which emphasizes prima facie duties. Sir William David Ross

(15 April 1877 – 5 May 1971), usually cited as W. D. Ross, was a Scottish

philosopher, known for work in ethics. The term prima facie means “at a

first sight” or “on the surface.” By prima facie duties, Ross

•Ross’s list the following categories of prima facie duties is much shorter,

which he believes reflects our actual moral convictions:

 Duties of Fidelity: the duty to keep promises and the obligation not to lie.

Duties of fidelity are duties to keep one’s promises and contracts and not

to engage in deception.
• Duties of Reparation: This is a duty to make up for the injuries one has
done to others. Ross describes this duty as "resting on a previous wrongful
act". It is the duty to compensate others when we harm them. If, for
example, I damage something that belongs to someone else, I have an
obligation to make restitution.
 Duties of Gratitude: the duty to thank those who help us. Suppose, for
example, an especially good friend is suddenly in need of assistance, I am
duty bound to do all I can help this individual, who in the past had acted
so selflessly toward me.

• Duties of Justice: The duty of justice requires that one act in such a way
that one distributes benefits and burdens fairly.
• Duties of Beneficence: the duty to improve the conditions of others. The
duty to do good to others: to foster their health, security, wisdom, moral
goodness, or happiness.

• Duties of Self-improvement: The duty of self-improvement is to act so as

to promote one’s own good, i.e., one’s own health, security, wisdom,
moral goodness, virtue, intelligence and happiness.
• Duties of Non-maleficence: The duty of non-injury (also known as non-

maleficence) is the duty not to harm others physically or psychologically:

to avoid harming their health, security, intelligence, character, or

happiness. We are obliged to avoid hurting others physically, emotionally

and psychologically.
 Virtue Ethics

• Virtue Ethics: Challenging the adequacy of rule-based theories

• “Virtue ethics” is a technical term in contemporary Western analytical moral

philosophy, used to distinguish a normative ethical theory focused on the virtues,

or moral character, from others such as deontology (or contractarianism) and

consequentialism.
 Cont--

• . Imagine a case in which it is agreed by every sort of theorist that I should, say, help

someone in need. A deontologist will emphasize the fact that in offering help, I will be

acting in accordance with a moral rule or principle such as “Do unto others as you would

be done by”; a consequentialist will point out that the consequences of helping will

maximize well-being; and a virtue ethicist will emphasize the fact that providing help

would be charitable or benevolent – charity and benevolence being virtues.

 Aristotle’s Ethics

• The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, (384-322 B.C.) first wrote a detailed

discussion of virtue morality in the Nichomachean Ethics.

• ‘Virtus’ he understood as strength. Correspondingly, specific virtues are seen as

strengths of character. But, many years after Aristotle’s death, virtue theory came

to be over-shadowed by the development of utilitarianism and deontology.

Cont--

• In the past fifty years, however, virtue theory has resurfaced as a major moral theory.

But why is that so? Virtue ethics has been restated and reinvigorated in the years since

1958 by philosophers such as Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre and Elizabeth

Anscombe. They and many others became disillusioned with the promises of

mainstream theories. They argue that how we ought to live could be much more

adequately answered by a virtue-based theory than in terms of calculating

consequences or obeying rules.

• They and many others became disillusioned with the promises of

mainstream theories. They argue that how we ought to live could be

much more adequately answered by a virtue-based theory than in

terms of calculating consequences or obeying rules.

Key questions which virtue ethical systems ask include:
 What sort of person do I want to be?
 What virtues are characteristic of the person I want to be?
 What actions will cultivate the virtues I want to possess?
 What actions will be characteristic of the sort of person I want to be?
• With respect to the good, right, happiness, the good is not a disposition. The good involves

a teleological system that involves actions.

A. Good is that which all things aim. Something is good if it performs its proper

function. E.g., a good coffee cup or a good red oak.

o A right action is that which is conducive to the good, and different goods correspond to the

differing sciences and arts.

• "The god" or best good is that which is desired for its own sake and

for the sake which we desire all other ends or goods.

• For human beings, eudaemonia is activity of the soul in accordance

with arete (excellence, virtue, or what it's good for). Eudaemonia is

living well and doing well in the affairs of the world.

B. The good of human beings cannot be answered with the exactitude of a
mathematical problem since mathematics starts with general principles and argues
to conclusions.
o Ethics starts with actual moral judgments before the formulation of general
principles.
o Aristotle presupposes natural tendencies in people.
C. Aristotle distinguishes between happiness (eudaemonia) and moral virtue:

o Moral virtue is not the end of life for it can go with inactivity, misery, and unhappiness

o Happiness, the end of life, that to which all aims, is activity in accordance with reason

(reason is the arete or peculiar excellence of persons).

a. Happiness is an activity involving both moral and intellectual arete.

b. Some external goods are necessary in order to exercise that activity.

 The Good Character

A.people have a natural capacity for good character, and it

is developed through practice. The capacity does not
come first--it's developed through practice.
o The sequence of human behavior raises the question of which is preeminent--

acts or dispositions.  Their interaction is broken by Aristotle's distinction

between acts which create good dispositions and acts which flow from the good

disposition once it has been created.

o  Arête is a disposition developed out of a capacity by the proper exercise of that

capacity.
 o Habits are developed through acting; a person's character is the structure of
habits and is formed by what we do.

A. Virtue, arete, or excellence is defined as a mean between two extremes of excess

and defect in regard to a feeling or action as the practically wise person would
determine it. The mean cannot be calculated a priori.
o The mean is relative to the individual and circumstances. For example, consider
the following traits:
o The level of courage necessary is different for a philosophy teacher, a

commando, and a systems programmer.

o Phronesis or practical wisdom is the ability to see the right thing to do in the

circumstances.
• In the ontological dimension, virtue is a mean; in the axiological dimension, it is
an extreme or excellence
• E.g., Hartmann's Diagram:
Pleasure and pain are powerful determinants of our actions.
• III. Pleasure is the natural accompaniment of unimpeded activity. Pleasure, as such, is
neither good nor bad.
A. Even so, pleasure is something positive and its effect is to perfect the exercise of
activity. Everything from playing chess to making love is improved with skill.

B. Pleasure cannot be directly sought--it is the side-product of activity. It is only an

element of happiness.

C. The good person, the one who has attained eudaemonia, is the standard as to what is
truly pleasant or unpleasant.
•IV. Friendship: a person's relationship to a friend is the same as the relation to
oneself. The friend can be thought of as a second self.

A. In friendship a person loves himself (egoism) not as one seeks money for himself,
but as he gives his money away to receive honor.

B. The kinds of friendship:

 Utility
 Pleasure
 The Good--endures as long as both retain their character.
•V. The Contemplative Faculty--the exercise of perfect happiness in intellectual or
philosophic activity.

A.Reason is the highest faculty of human beings. We can engage in it longer

than other activities.

B.Philosophy is loved as an end-in-itself, and so eudaemonia implies leisure and

self-sufficiency as an environment for contemplation.
 Aristotle on Pleasure 

•A summary of Aristotle's ethics clarifies several important distinction between

happiness and pleasure.

I. Eudaimonia: the state of personal wellbeing, having self-worth; exhibiting a zest for
life; radiating energy; achieving happiness, "good spirit," or self-presence.
II. Hence, happiness is activity of the soul in accordance with areté (excellence or
virtue).
A. I.e. Living well and doing well in the affairs of the world.
B.Picture yourself at your best.   Compare Maslow's self-actualizing person or
Jung's individuation of a person with Aristotle's description of eudaimonia.
I. Good is that to which all thing aim; i.e., the good is that which performs its proper
function.
A.What constitutes a good wrench or a good coffee cup? The peculiar areté of
excellence is established by its purpose. The peculiar excellence is teleological.
B. What constitutes a good person?"
1) Activity of the soul in accordance with reason (that capacity which is unique
to us as persons).
2) This activity is both moral (doing the right thing at the right time)
and intellectual areté (practical wisdom or phronesis).
 1)Aristotle notes that some external goods are necessary for the exercise of that
activity.
I. Moral Virtue is not the end of life, for it can go with inactivity, misery, and unhappiness.
II. What is good for a person cannot be answered with the exactitude of mathematics.
A.Ethics attempts to formulate general principles whose application is dependent upon
the circumstances at hand (i.e., initial conditions). (Note that Aristotle's theory does
not imply ethical relativism)
Cont-----

A.The doctrine of the mean is not a doctrine of relativism but doctrine applied to
specific circumstances. E.g., what and how much one eats differs for a weight-
lifter and a ballerina--even so, proper diet has guidelines and standards which
apply differently according to different initial conditions.
I. Pleasure, itself, is a side-product of activity; pleasure results from activity without
hindrance.
1) As Aristotle expresses it, pleasure is the natural accompaniment of unimpeded
activity.
1) Pleasure, as such, is neither good nor bad, but is something positive because the
effect of pleasure perfects the exercise of that activity.
2) Even so, Aristotle emphasizes that pleasure is not to be sought for its own sake.
(Cf., the hedonistic paradox.)
Non-Normative Ethics/Meta-ethics

• What is Meta-ethics?

• Suppose I am debating with a friend the question whether or not we ought to give

to famine relief, whether or not we are morally obliged to give to famine relief.

The sorts of questions philosophers raise about this kind of debate fall roughly

into two groups. First, there are first order questions about which party in the

debate, if any, is right, and why.

• Then, there are second order questions about what the parties in the debate are
doing when they engage in it. Roughly, the first order questions are the province
of normative ethics, and the second order questions are the province of
metaethics. As one recent writer puts it:

• In metaethics, we are concerned not with questions which are the province of
normative ethics like 'Should I give to famine relief?' or 'Should I return the wallet
I found in the street?' but with questions about questions like these.
•Meta-ethics tries to answer question, such as:

 What does “good,” “right,” or “justice” mean?

 What makes something good or right?

 Is moral realism true?

 Is morality irreducible, cognitive, or overriding?

 Do intrinsic values exist?

• It is important to be clear that in normative ethics we do not just look for an

answer to the question 'Should we give to famine relief?' we also look for some

insight into why the right answer is right. It is in their answers to this latter sort of

'why?' question that the classic theories in normative ethics disagree. Examples of

such theories include:

• act-utilitarianism (one ought to give to famine relief because that particular

action, of those possible, contributes most to the greater happiness of the greatest

number); rule-utilitarianism (one ought to give to famine relief because giving to

famine relief is prescribed by a rule the general observance of which contributes

most to the greater happiness of the greatest number); and

• Kantianism (one ought to give to famine relief because universal refusal to give to

famine relief would generate some kind of inconsistency).

• Normative ethics thus seeks to discover the general principles underlying moral

practice, and in this way potentially impacts upon practical moral problems:

different general principles may yield different verdicts in particular cases. Meta-

ethics, rather, concerned with questions about the following:

Meaning: what is the semantic function of moral discourse? Is the function of

moral discourse to state facts, or does it have some other non-fact-stating role?

Metaphysics: do moral facts (or properties) exist? If so, what are they like? Are

they identical or reducible to some other type of fact (or property) or are they

irreducible and sui generis?

• Epistemology and justification: is there such a thing as moral knowledge? How

can we know whether our moral judgements are true or false? How can we ever

justify our claims to moral knowledge?

• Phenomenology: how are moral qualities represented in the experience of an

agent making a moral judgement? Do they appear to be 'out there' in the world?
• Moral psychology: what can we say about the motivational state of someone

making a moral judgement? What sort of connection is there between making a

moral judgement and being motivated to act as that judgement prescribes?

• Objectivity: can moral judgements really be correct or incorrect? Can we work

towards finding out the moral truth?

one such philosopher writes:

•[Metaethics] is not about what people ought to do. It is about what they are doing

when they talk about what they ought to do.

• Some examples of metaethical theories are moral realism, non-cognitivism, error-

theory and moral anti-realism.

 Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

• Consider a particular moral judgement, such as the judgement that murder is wrong.

What sort of psychological state does this express? Some philosophers, called

cognitivists, think that a moral judgement such as this expresses a belief. Beliefs can

be true or false: they are truth-apt, or apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity.

So cognitivists think that moral judgements are capable of being true or false.
• On the other hand, non-cognitivists think that moral judgements express non-

cognitive states such as emotions or desires. Desires and emotions are not truth-

apt. So moral judgements are not capable of being true or false.

 Strong Cognitivism: Naturalism

• A strong cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral judgements (a) are apt

for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, and (b) can be the upshot of

cognitively accessing the facts which render them true. Strong cognitivist theories

can be either naturalist or non-naturalist.

• According to a naturalist, a moral judgement is rendered true or false by a natural

state of affairs, and it is this natural state of affairs to which a true moral

judgement affords us access. But what is a natural state of affairs? G. E. Moore's

characterization: “By 'nature', then, I do mean and have meant that which is the

subject matter of the natural sciences and also of psychology.”

• Naturalist cognitivists hold that moral properties are identical to (or reducible to)

natural properties. The Cornell realists (e.g. Nicholas Sturgeon, Richard Boyd, and

David Brink) think that moral properties are irreducible natural properties in their

own right. Naturalist reductionists (e.g. Richard that moral properties are reducible

to the other natural properties that are the subject matter of the natural sciences and

psychology.
 Strong Cognitivism: Non-Naturalism

• Non-naturalists think that moral properties are not identical to or reducible to

natural properties. They are irreducible and sui generis

Strong Cognitivism without Moral Realism: Mackie's 'Error-Theory'

• John Mackie has argued that although moral judgements are apt to be true or false,

and that moral judgements, if true, would afford us cognitive access to moral

facts, moral judgements are in fact always false.

• This is because there simply are no moral facts or properties in the world of the

sort required to render our moral judgements true: we have no plausible

epistemological account of how we could access such facts and properties,

 Weak Cognitivism about Morals without Moral Realism: 'Best Opinion'
Theories

• A weak cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral judgements

(a)are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, but

(b)cannot be the upshot of cognitive access to moral properties and states of affairs.

Moral judgements are thus capable of being true or false, even though they are not based

on a faculty with a tracking, accessing or detecting role - in other words, even though

true moral judgements are not the upshot of cognitive access to moral states of affairs.
• This view thus rejects moral realism, not by denying the existence of

moral facts (like the error-theory), but by denying that those facts are

constitutively independent of human opinion.

 Non-Cognitivism

• Non-cognitivists deny that moral judgements are even apt to be true or false. Non-

cognitivists thus disagree with both weak and strong cognitivism.